


The More I Look for Goodness The More That I Find None

by thought



Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fusion, F/F, Meta!Root, Other, Red Vs. Blue crossover/fusion, Transhumanism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-19
Updated: 2016-04-19
Packaged: 2018-06-03 04:53:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,659
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6597526
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thought/pseuds/thought
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Agent Sam Groves wasn't supposed to be the first person implanted with an artificial intelligence. Agent Sameen Shaw wasn't supposed to exist.<br/>or<br/>In which Root doesn't understand boundaries, Shaw just wants to beat up some dudes and have a drink,and Zoe Morgan would be able to fix all of this if her team would just talk to her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The More I Look for Goodness The More That I Find None

**Author's Note:**

> This is a fusion with the web series Red vs. Blue. All you really need to know is there are space marines and AIs in a psychologically abusive experimental military program of dubious morality.  
> I don't entirely know who to blame for this, I suspect its a lot of people, but I know for sure [Anneapocalypse](http://www.archiveofourown.org/users/anneapocalypse) introduced the idea of Meta!Root, and [Nogoaway](http://www.archiveofourown.org/users/nogoaway) and [Lydia--Argent](http://www.archiveofourown.org/users/lydia--argent) have also written about great PoI/RVB fusions.

Sam wakes up slowly to the bitter taste of anaesthetic at the back of her throat. Her entire body feels distant and fuzzy, familiar muffling of the really good drugs. she hates it. It's hard to think. The medics know she prefers the pain to the cognitive slowdown, so she must be off-ship. That's concerning enough on its own, but the sticky feel of blood-crusted gauze across her cheek is even more so. She's not the best fighter on the team, but she's pretty damn close, even if Harry still refuses to put her at the top of the leaderboard. She hasn't sustained an injury that required more than biofoam and medijell for at least a year.

She focuses on keeping her heart rate calm and steady as not to alert the monitors that she's awake. Her memory is sluggish to respond, recent events coming back to her in fragmented flashes. The last thing she remembers is fighting back-to-back with Zoe in the back of a moving truck. Everything after that is gone.

"I know you're awake, Groves," someone -Zoe-- says. Sam drags her eyes open with an effort. Zoe's in full armour, helmet in her lap. Rare to see her out of armour these days. Her face is doing something complicated that not even Sam, with her years of study around being a person, can decipher. Guilt, maybe. Pity. She can feel the drugs dimming her instinctive defensiveness. Fuck this, honestly.

"Where am I?" she asks.

"You were transferred back to the ship three hours ago. We were close enough to angel on my Shoulder to get you there for the surgeries."

"What happened?" There's something weird about Zoe's voice, something about the entire room, really, but Sam can't put her finger on what it is.

"You're going to be ok," Zoe says evenly. "I made sure of it."

It's soothing, the familiar surety in her voice. Agent Morgan takes care of her team. This is a constant.

*

The next time Sam wakes up she's not alone. The room is empty. she knows this immediately. There are four medics outside the observation window. Zoe and Leon are there, too, and Counsellor Ingram. Harry //admin// is coming down the corridor quickly, called down from his office. The temperature in the room is 3.55 degrees C colder than optimal for human operating efficiency.

Sam sits up very slowly. There's a steady ache in her ribs, easily ignored, and a deeper, invasive pain running up over the right side of her jaw to behind her ear. There's also a faint stinging in the back of her neck, right up at the base of her skull, like she'd gotten nicked with a knife and nobody had noticed to slap a bit of Medijell on it. One cracked rib, three bruises as a result of impact with concrete at 80 MPH, severe nerve and tissue damage on right ear, internal damage causing permanent deafness, superficial scrapes and cuts to surrounding skin as result of direct hit from modified SMG and external damage to armour helmet. Superficial skin damage at base of skull, bone grafting, crystal lattice connectivity throughout nerves and tissue as result of implantation process.

Sam can feel her heart beating faster, her pulse jumping at her throat, blood rushing away from her head leaving her lightheaded and shaking. Her breathing has sped up and there isn't' enough oxygen in the room. Panic, probably. Useless. She focuses on the pertinent details. Deafness in her right ear. She's sure as shit not getting to the top of the leaderboard now. Maybe she can redesign her helmet to compensate somehow. Extra visual data. The techs never like it when she makes her own modifications but what the fuck are they going to do about it?

Second issue: implantation. Her mind connects the dots easily, but she's still confused. She was in the third implantation group, with Leon and Kara. Zoe and Cole were scheduled for implantation shortly after their last mission, with Fusco and Reese as Phase Two. She can see Harry bumping someone off the first round to make room for his precious Agent Shaw, but as flattering as it would be, she can't imagine Harry bumping _her_ to the top.

All this being said, there's no way the information she's just come up with came from her own memory and awareness. So. There's probably an "aggressive pseudo-AI" sharing her brain. She shivers with delight.

'Hello?' she thinks as hard as she can. Thinking words feels clumsy and is also kind of difficult, but she's really not sure what else to do.

She feels like she's being watched. The suddenness of the feeling is intensely weird, a sensation usually so vague as to be imagined slamming into her with an overwhelming certainty. She curls in on herself instinctively, eyes scanning for a possible threat. Through the window she sees Harry come into the observation area. He leans in to speak with Counsellor Ingram, pushing his glasses up his nose with a finger.

'Hi, Sam thinks again, and braces herself. The feeling is nowhere near as intense the second time. Still no words that stand out in her mind as not her own. she wonders how she could tell. Someone's left her helmet on a shelf beside the bed, and she turns to make sure the holo-projector is working. She knows most AI pick an avatar quite soon after being born, and she can't imagine Harry would have implanted her with an AI still in its self-actualization stage. There's no projection, not even a flicker.

"Hello," she says, aloud.

She knows the AI can hear her, but she's not fond of projecting an avatar. She prefers to observe. Sam figures as long as she's not planning on simply observing when Sam needs her backup in combat, that's fine with her.

She blinks. Well. That's an... unnerving form of communication. She's pretty sure this level of neural integration is supposed to take longer. At least, that's what Harry predicted in his notes that she absolutely didn't steal her first week aboard.

"Well," she says, still out loud for her own sake. "It's great to finally meet you. I don't suppose you have a name?"

She doesn't.

*

Her first training session once she's out of Medical she's up against Fusco. Leon and Joss show up as their respective cheerleaders. The last match she'd have with observers had been when Counsellor Ingram had pitted her and Fusco and Cole against Shaw Three on one with live ammo. It had sounded fun at the time, and in those few moments when Sam had gone up against her in hand-to hand had been thrilling and challenging. ...and then Shaw had thrown her across the room and Fusco had thrown the grenade and Cole had been a fucking hero and wound up in Medical, but even sprawled on her back on the floor with a mild concussion and paint hardening her arms to her sides Sam had still enjoyed watching Shaw swagger away, brushing off the medics attempts to help.

This match is far less exciting. She beats the shit out of Fusco as fast as she can because all the acrobatics and quick movements of her fighting style build up sharp pain behind her eyes and make the world tilt alarmingly. That's where her AI proves her worth. Even as Sam can't tell which way is up and can barely see for the spots dancing in her vision her body is reacting to predicted information, the instructions leaping from mind to muscles and bypassing her conscious mind entirely. The lack of hearing in her right ear isn't much of an issue in CQC, and as long as she keeps her helmet on she can compensate with visual alerts and sound vertualization. It's frustrating, but she's long been familiar with the idea of her body as sub-par equipment.

The first time she'd understood had been the night Hanna didn't come back from her training mission. Sam had just turned twelve, and Hanna had told her they were going to sneak into the kitchens to bake a cake in celebration. Sam knew this would be her last birthday before deployment, and she had turned towards Hanna's attention like a sunflower.

When Team Gamma had come back minus one member, the Sergeant told them Hanna had been lost because of equipment failure. Sam had planned to find out which piece of equipment had failed and build a better one, but when she hacked into the official mission log she understood. Hanna had been equipment. Hanna had failed. She had read Sergeant Russell's report, and when he detailed the fatal error Hanna had made Sam had known something was wrong. She and Hanna had drilled that attack pattern for weeks last year, there was no way she messed it up. When she brought this to the attention of the other training officers, she got a lecture about security clearance and eight weeks cleaning duty.

Six months later she'd gone AWOL with a new identity and a new understanding of the fundamental flaws of humanity. She had sworn she'd never go back to the military, but when she'd heard through Chatternet about a top-secret experimental program aimed at combining humans with artificial intelligence run by Harold Finch himself, she had shown up for a military guard detail for Mr. Finch while he attended a conference in the Outer Colonies with a faked service record and history. Two years later she'd got the transfer orders.

It had taken a little while longer for Harry to trust her once the necessity of Medical examination had revealed her particular childhood modifications, but in the end his investment in the unique scientific opportunities she offered him had won out.

*

Zoe can barely look at her. It takes her a while to realize it, but when Kara calls her out for playing the hero right in front of everyone Sam understands and she feels sick with anger. Her AI should have been Zoe's, but Zoe had let her guilt push her in to giving up her place to Sam even though she knew Sam would hate any show of pity. Sam means to corner her after their AI theory class, but instead she finds herself quizzing Harry about AI potential. The possibilities are staggering, even watered down as they are by Admin's ethical single tiny violin.

She runs a mission with Shaw and everything goes unusually smoothly. Shaw's a professional, a bit of a show-off, and completely immune to Sam's flirting. Sam volleys innuendos and invitations while Shaw volleys a tank over a fence like a particularly aggressive game of tennis. Sam cuts through Insurrectionists effortlessly, leaving a trail of bodies in her wake, the AI making her already incredible reaction times practically instantaneous, guiding her in the most likely direction even before her opponent has started moving. Shaw keeps up with her in almost every way, sacrificing some of Sam's flexibility and agility for brute strength. Sam hasn't wanted to pin someone down and fuck them like this in actual years.

When they get back from the mission, in the locker room before debriefing, Sam plans to try her luck without the armour in the way. Unfortunately Joss is there preparing for a training match, and while Sam has no issue with a little exhibitionism between friends she's not sure how Shaw will take it.

"It ever bother you," Joss asks while Sam brushes her hair. "That we're fighting Insurrectionists when the rest of the damn galaxy is out there fighting aliens?"

"Nope," Sam says, at the same time Shaw says

Why should it?"

Sam beams over at Shaw, but Shaw's staring at herself in the mirror, still mostly in armour, only her helmet off. She looks kind of uncertain, and Joss looks ready to break into a whole prepared speech, so Sam grabs her uniform jacket and books it out of the room and to Harry's office. Later that evening, when she sees Shaw slipping out of Joss's room with tangled hair and a happily dazed expression, she regrets her rapid exit immensely.

Meanwhile, her AI's refusal to project an avatar or even speak out loud is becoming more and more of a point of interest. Cole and his AI are fucking model subjects,, combat performance skyrocketing, neural connection developing steadily, and snarky banter perfected down to an art. Sam hates him, a little. All the attention Harry pays him is positive, while Sam and her AI only get vaguely disapproving confusion, as if they're being difficult on purpose, or as if one of them is too flawed to function properly. Sam tries to explain that they're functioning just fine, that their neural connection has gone far beyond a simple transfer of information, but Harry only shakes his head at her and tells her she's romanticizing a piece of technology.

Counsellor Ingram not-so-subtlety implies that she's saying these things because she thinks she's special or chosen, and Harry never outright disagrees with him.

Her head aches continue to get worse.

*

Joss leaves, and then Joss almost gets them all blown the fuck up, and then Joss dies. Zoe says Shaw did it. Shaw says Joss was a traitor, and Sam almost feels sympathy when she remembers the vulnerability in Shaw's gaze when she'd seen her leaving Joss's quarters. Sam wants to soothe that betrayal away, so she goes hunting for the truth. They pull security camera footage, dig deep into the communications systems. At first Sam thinks Joss was really doing what she thought was right-- the trail seems to lead back around through Carl Elias' branch of Insurrectionists to a company called Decima and finally up to the head of the Special projects Oversight sub-committee, Mr. John Greer. But when they keep pulling those threads Greer's connections to Decima go from incidental to damning. They're about to pull financial's for military contracting through Decima when something that could only be another AI forces them out of the system brutally and seals the cracks behind them. As far as they know, AI can't be employed or owned by private companies, and yet they can't imagine what else it could have been to so rapidly expel them from the Decima servers.

In the end, they don't tell Shaw anything. Joss was either a traitor or naive, and they doubt either option would sit well with Shaw.

Sam's next mission sees her working with John and Kara, which mostly means putting up with their steady stream of viciously crewel flirting over coms the entire time, responses coming so fast and so fatalistic that she couldn't break through the familiarity even if she wanted to.

John gets thrown off a small office building. It's not even that far, ok, not after you've experienced Zoe Morgan kick you out of a forty-third floor window with a grin. Kara puts a line of Insurrectionists down on their knees on the same roof and shoots them in the head, execution style. The vague horror Sam feels clenching in her stomach is not her own.

'Really?' she thinks, pointedly. She rarely needs or wants to communicate in words anymore, most of their communication is so streamlined as to be barely noticeable. 'We've killed tens of people and that's what gets to you? You're an AI. You should be above these things.'

Nothing comes back to her. Sam doesn't mention the anomaly in her mission report. so her AI isn't very good at being a machine. Sam's not very good at being a person. They balance out.

She's becoming a regular in Medical, head aches driving her there, the disconnected, floaty feeling of strong painkillers starting to be familiar. Where once she hated it, now it's a welcome relief from the realities of her physical form. Combat is easier when she doesn't have to block out the pain, mundane conversations easier when she can just open her mouth and the words come out. She's automating the unnecessary processes of her existence and it's the first time she's felt like she's moving in a direction with potential. No one seems to notice anything different about them, and they hold their slowly developing self close and intimate between them. A shared secret of affection and possibility. It's almost their birthday.

*

When Shaw and Cole go AWOL they're not really surprised. Security cameras have observed them sitting hunched together over datapads, their AI's hovering at their shoulders, sometimes arguing, sometimes franticly comparing notes and sharing stories.

The last night Shaw's onboard Sam tracks her down in the mess where she's sitting with her hands wrapped around a glass of whisky, staring down at a photo on her datapad. She closes it before they can get a good look. Shaw looks up at them, bored and dismissive.

"What do you want?"

"Can't a girl come have a bit of friendly conversation?" Sam's choosing her words, is reasonably present in the moment, but her AI is just as present, just as eager for Shaw's attention.

"Not tonight," Shaw says. Sam wants to grab the chain of her dog tags where it's resting over her hoodie and pull her up and close with it, wrap the metal around her fist and hold on. Instead, she walks away. And again, a few hours later, she regrets it.

After Shaw and Cole leave Sam starts doing some research. They find Sameen Shaw's service record and it doesn't take long to figure out it's just as fake as Sam's. After that, they dig even deeper, tear apart Harry's private files until they find Shaw's real file.

They remember, before Sam's AI was implanted, when she was still testing her abilities and sense of self, she had hacked in to the cameras in Admin's office. He'd been arguing with Nathan Ingram. Both showing high levels of distress. The recording is brief, but the saved portion includes Admin accusing Nathan Ingram of interfering with his research, corrupting the data of another AI.

"Do you have any idea how much damage you could have done?" admin had demanded. "The outcomes are entirely unpredictable."

"Exactly. That's the point. I wasn't going to let you disrespect Grace's memory like that. And she wouldn't have wanted that either. Introducing the randomly generated data into the personality matrix made sure the similarities would be negligible."

"You could have ruined the entire fragment," Admin had gone cold and dismissive. "Let's remember which one of us *finished* his engineering degree, shall we? Perhaps it's best you stick to playing with people's minds."

"You're one to talk."

"I would never have interfered with her life--"

The recording cuts out there. They file it in with their growing information about Sameen Shaw.

Zoe comes to talk to them at breakfast one morning. It's the first time she's really spoken to them beyond giving orders or asking them to 'pass the coffee, no, I don't need a cup, just give me the entire pot'. She's as calm and effortlessly put-together as always, no sign of the screaming mess that her duel-implantation had left her.

"How are you doing, Groves?" she asks.

"I'm fine," they say, automatically. Zoe studies them and they feel torn open and exposed. It's a special skill that Zoe has, and Sam has always been particularly vulnerable to it.

"There's a lot of things happening lately," Zoe says, finally. "A lot of people are starting to ask questions."

"I pinky swear I won't mutiny," Sam chirps.

"Nobody said the word mutiny," Zoe says. "But people are saying some words. And all I'm asking is that you talk to me before you make any... decisions. about anything."

"Sure, boss," they say.

"I mean that. I take care of my people. That hasn't changed."

"Like you took care of Carter?" Sam doesn't want to ask, but her AI is bitterly defensive of Joss and Sam has to admit to a bit of satisfaction at the way Zoe almost winces.

"That was different. You know that. You understand what it means to be a soldier more than most of us." It's a warning. A reminder that there are things Zoe Morgan knows that can be used against Sam Groves whenever she wants.

"Ok," they say. "If anything comes up, I'll be sure to get you to sign my permission slip."

As it turns out, there's no time to check in with anybody when everything comes to a head.

The alert goes off throughout all decks and they know immediately that it has to be Shaw and Cole. Shaw's proximity spurs them into action. It's easy to take Fusco down when they see he's been ordered to stop Shaw. They're not sure if they leave him alive. They're not sure they care. When they find Shaw she's on the wrong end of Kara's rocket launcher. They stand just around the corner to watch, confident that Shaw will be able to handle it. Shaw sends Cole off --he clearly has his own mission, and they wouldn't be surprised if it was similar to what Joss had been trying to do-- and faces off against Kara with a little tilt of her head. Kara is tall enough especially in armour that Shaw has to look up at her when she says, "Come and fucking get me."

Which, of course, is when John Reese rides his white stallion (read: two massive SMG's) up to save the day. Surprisingly, it's not Kara he's saving.

"We need to talk," he says. Shaw snorts.

"What an excellent time for a heart-to-heart, John."

"Just go," he says, voice hard. Shaw goes. They follow her.

They pass Medical where Leon is strapped down to a bed, screaming. Nobody's around to hear. Sam wonders if they should put him out of his misery, but her AI redirects her focus to Shaw.

Shaw's going for Admin. Everything inside of their head starts screaming danger. It is very important that Shaw not make contact with Admin. Most real threats on the ship have been neutralized, but Admin is a different kind of threat entirely.

The Command Centre is empty, abandoned when they get there. They're about to make their presence known to Shaw when Zoe drops out of a panel in the ceiling and caries them hard down to the deck plating. They fight her, but she's the top of the leaderboard for a reason, and her two AI have only made her better.

"Calm down," she snaps, slamming their wrists down hard and igniting every inappropriate fantasy they've had about being fucked by their CO. Not an optimal time for that sort of thinking, especially with Shaw ten feet away bent over a consul and possibly hooking herself into a direct hardline with the ship.

"I'd like some answers," Zoe says. "Because I really don't want to arrest my team for treason today, and I'm pretty sure I won't have to if you'd all just trust me enough to share. I can't do my goddamn job without all the information."

"Yes, yes, ok," they say. "I think Cole and Joss figured it out long before the rest of us."

Zoe lets her guard down just enough that her hold loosens. They slam upward, head-butting her hard then twisting to kick up into her chest. She flies backwards, lands hard on her back and manages to turn in into a back flip, landing on her feet and coming in impossibly fast with a brutal haymaker that they just barely dodge. They can see Admin and Counsellor Ingram approaching through the security cameras in a nearby hallway. Shaw is still bent over the consul, not even glancing back at Zoe and Sam. Wen they look at the external sensors, a brief glance as they're rolling under Zoe's roundhouse kick, they realize that the ship as been in the process of crashing for the last half an hour, and a snowy landscape is coming up rapidly. As if to underscore this realization, the artificial gravity suddenly switches off, detecting the presence of a natural gravitational pull.

Sam and Shaw both fall the same direction, landing hard near an emergency airlock. Zoe manages to hold on to a piece of deck plating, magnetic's obviously engaged by her AI instantaneously. They take advantage of this brief respite to punch the code for the airlock, air hissing out and wind whipping in carrying snow and ice crystals. Shaw looks between them and Zoe and bolts, diving out the airlock, landing hard and sprinting fast, armour flickering in and out of visibility, her Cano unit clearly damaged.

They don't even have to think about it before they've leapt after her. Their landing is far more graceful, and they have the benefit of being able to step in Shaw's tracks in the deep snow. Plus, their legs are longer, and the mods that had torn their body apart as a child now add strength to each push of muscle and speed to each flickering nerve. They see Cole at the same time that Shaw does, and her momentary distraction is all they need. Shaw turns to get a better look at where he's leaning out of the side of a Pelican hovering low off the ground, and they put on one desperate final burst of speed and slam into her from behind.

She's stronger than they are. She's also six feet away from the edge of a cliff, and once they shove her close enough to the edge there's not as much she can do to pull away.

"Shh, shh, it's ok, sweetie," they say, struggling to keep her in their grip. "I'm not going to hurt you."

They're mind is already reaching out frantically, wireless connectivity requests bouncing against Shaw like raindrops, scrabbling for any kind of connection. She punches them in the stomach. Even through the armour it hurts. No human could punch that hard, not without armour enhancements that they know Shaw doesn't have.

With one hand they pop the seals on her helmet, yank it off. Her hair is tied back, giving them an unobstructed view of her lovely face. No sweat glistens on her forehead, no flush touches her cheeks. Each breath she takes is exactly 3.4 seconds on the inhale and 3.3 on the exhale. They match their breathing to hers.

"I read your file," they say, words almost tripping over each other in their eagerness. "It's ok. I understand. I know what you are. you're perfect. You're incredible, you're what we could be, what we want to be-- we can all become together, Sameen, it's something new. I'm becoming something more. We all will be."

"Get the fuck off me," Shaw snarls. "I don't care what you read. I don't want anything to do with you people and your bullshit."

"You're a part of us," they say, confused.

"And if I never have to think about that again in my whole fucking life it'll be too soon."

"Sameen. We'd be so good together."

Behind them, they can hear Cole's pelican getting closer. In the ship Zoe and Admin are probably getting ready to come after them. "Sameen," they say. Please."

"Look, Sam, whatever the fuck you've got going on, I don't want to be a part of it."

The pelican lands behind her. Cole jumps down, his AI glowing at his shoulder. Shaw looks over at him, and there's the briefest flicker in her firewall's. Connection established. They let go of her physical body, take a few steps back. The connection settles comfortably at the base of their skull like a reassuringly solid line of rope. Shaw doesn't seem to notice, sprinting towards the pelican. It pulls up as soon as she's on board. They lift a hand, waving to get Shaw's attention. She leans out, helmet still off, hair falling out of her braids.

"Sweetie," they call. "One last thing. Please, call me root."


End file.
